good morning, and welcome to "this week." systemic failure. >> i consider that totally unacceptable. >> the attempted attack on flight 253 leaves many unanswered questions. what went wrong? are the skies safe? why were so many signals missed? >> the entire administration approach is wrong. >> have we started to drift into a sense of complacency? >> our headlinesers this morning, the top adviser, john brennan. key members of house and senate homeland security committees.

congressman pete hoekstra and senator susan collins. senator joe lieberman and congressman jane harmon. and the politics of national security with our round table. george will, cynthia tucker. ron brownstein, and david sanger of "the new york times." and as always, "the sunday funnies." president obama's plan for 2010 is to do all the things he said he was going to do this year. and we begin with the man who is leading the president's review of the intelligence failures that led to the christmas day attempted bombing of flight 253. department security adviser john

brennan. thanks for being with us. good morning. >> good morning. >> there's news that the united states embassy and the british embassy in yemen are closed this morning. what can you tell us about the intelligence? what is it shows about the new threats to u.s. interests there? >> it shows the threat that al qaeda poses in the area. i spoke with the ambassador there. looked at the intelligence available. the attacks possibly against the embassy and personnel, we decided it was the prudent thing to do to close the embassy. we're working closely with the yemeni authorities to address the threat that is out there. >> a live threat, an active threat? >> there is. al qaeda has several hundred members in yemen. they've grown in strength. that's why, from the very first day of this administration we've been focused on yemen. i've been to yemen twice. we're continuing a dialogue.

we've provided equipment and training. we're cooperating closely. we've known about it for awhile. we're determined to destroy al qaeda in pakistan, afghanistan, or yemen. we'll get there. >> there's a report that the british and the united states are setting up a counterterrorism police force in yemen. is this a new front? does it require more american boots on the ground in yemen? >> we've been investing in yemen for many months now. we're working closely with the yemenis and international partners. with the british, the saudis and others. to make sure we provide the yemeni government the wherewithal to make progress and we were able to identify the al qaeda operatives and commanders and leaders. successful strikes were carried

out. several of the members, senior leaders, that are no longer with us today as a result of the actions. >> let's turn to flight 253. the failed terror attack on chrimas day. the president has reports from the cia, department of homeland security, other agencies. the basic questions that the american people have are pretty straightforward. who dropped the ball here? where did the system fail? >> there was no single piece of intelligence that said that mr. abdulmutallab was going to carry we had, looking back, a number of streams of information. we had the information from his father, he was concerned about his son going to yemen. we had other streams of information from intelligence channels. that were little snippets. we might have had a partial name. we need to bring that information together so when a father comes in with information and we have intelligence, we can map that up and stop individuals like abdulmutallab from getting

on a plane. >> that's exactly the discussion we had after 9/11. about connecting the disparate dots. you were one of the people there to put that in place. that's where the failure occurred. the dots were not connected. >> prior to 9/11, i think there was reluctance on sharing information. there's no evidence that the groups were reluctant to share now. >> including the nas? where their intercepts shared? >> absutely. all the information is shared. there are millions upon millions of bits of data that come in on a regular basis. we need to make sure that the system is robust enough to bring the information to the surface that is really a threat concern. we need to make the system stronger. >> you say millions upon millions of bits of data. facebook has 350 million users. who put out 3.5 billion pieces of content a week. it's always drawing connections. in the era of google, why does

the u.s. intelligence community not have the sophistication and power of facebook? >> we do have it. and well beyond that. that's why we were able to stop other individuals from carrying out attacks because we were able to do that on a regular basis. in this one instance this system did not work. there were human errors, lapses. we need to strengthen it. day if and day out, the successes are there. we're continuing to make progress against al qaeda. we've been fortunate to take advantage of the systems in place. as americans, they were able to enjoy the holidays. watching football games, spending te with their families. these dedicated americans were working around the clock to protect their fellow americans. >> let's talk accountability. the president says he will

insist on it at every level. last week, the secretary of the department of homeland security was on this program and others. this is what she had to say about the christmas day attack. >> the traveling public is safe. we've instituted additional screening and security measures. in light of this incident. but, again, everybody reacted as they should. the system, once the incident occurred, the system worked. >> she also said that there was no information that would have put abdulmutallab on a no-fly list, which we now know was not the case. was that a mistake? for her to say that? or was she just out of the loop? >> i think she clarified her remarks about the system working or not. i've been able to work with her. for the last 11 months. i consider that we, as a nation, are very fortunate to have someone or her caliber, experience, and dedication. day in and day out, she's working very hard to make sure that the american public is safe and continues to be safe. so what we're trying to do with janet and the other agencies and

departments, try to find out how to strengthen the system. the system works very well every day. there are instances where, for whatever reason, things don't happen. the president doesonsider it to be unacceptable. we're going to work to strengthen it. make sure that nobody, again, like abdulmutallab gets on a plane with explosives. >> this has been a tough week for the cia. seven officers were killed in a suicide bombing on the afghanistan-pakistan border. how did the attack occur where seven cia officials were killed? >> first of all, i think the tragic death of the seven officers underscores the bravery and the risks that the men and women of the cia put themselves at every day. i think the nation owes them a debt of gratitude. the cia is looking at the circumstances of the attack and trying to make sure it doesn't happen again. the cia is on the front line. rit on the border between

afghanistan and pakistan. it is going to take a toll. as far as the people that are there, the expertise that we have. the cia is a resilient organization. i had the privilege to serve there for 25 years. we're confident they will be able to rebound from this and be able to continue to prosecute the war on al qaeda. >> should they be out on the front line like that? >> yes, we have to take the risks. we have to learn from the attack. like the attempted attack on the 25th of december, the attack on the base. we need to take the risks. we need to find out who they are, what they're planning, what the next steps are. >> good luck. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. as the congressional panel takes their seats, we'll have a listen to what the president had to say about stepping up pressure on al qaeda in yemen. >> i've made it a prrity to strengthen our partnership in yemen. training and equips their

security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al qaeda terrorists. >> and i'm joined by the two top senators on the homeland security committee. independent chairman joe lieberman and susan collins. and from california, the chair of the house homeland security intelligence subcommittee, jane harmon. and from grand rapids, michigan, the ranking republican on the house committee, pete hoekstra. welcome to all. congressman hoekstra, let me begin with you since you've just returned from yemen. what did you learn about specifically the plot against flight 253? about al qaeda? and about the yemeni government's capacity to fight this fight? >> i think we learned a number of things. as john brennan just said, this is a real threat, this is an imminent threat coming from the al qaeda arabian peninsula area. the second thing that we've learned is that this is kind of

a unique threat coming from this group. why? it's unique because the core group of al qaeda on the peninsula is formed by former gitmo detainees. these are people that have been held in gitmo, have been returned, and have now gone back on the battlefield. there's the influence of an american radical iman. these people have moved an attack on the u.s. homeland to the top of their priority list. that is the root cause of why we saw the attack at ft. hood. why we saw the attack on flight 253. the final thing is that, you know, the yemeni government has limited capacity to deal with returning members from gitmo and the indigenous al qaeda elements in the country. i think that the increased assistance we're providing is absolutely essential.

we need this connection between yemen and america and the brits if we're going to contain the threat. the good thing about what john brennan said this morning, it appears we're all on the same page. we recognize the threat. we're committed to enhancing the intelligence capabilities. and our offensive capability to deal with this. the pressing issue coming up over the next few months is how do we deal with americans who have joined al qaeda and are now part of the machine that wants to attack the united states? >> home grown terrorists. you raised several issues there. let me stay on yemen for a moment. last week, senator, you said that yemen could turn into tomorrow's war. expand on that a little bit. how hot a war are you talking about? do you foresee american forces? would you call for american forces? >> let me explain the comment. senator collins and i were in

yemen with colleagues in august. one of the amecan personnel said to us, and i thought quite wisely, iraq is yesterday's war. afghanistan is today's war. if we don't act preemptively, yemen is tomorrow's war. we are acting preemptively now. we have carried out successful raids in the last couple of weeks against al qaeda. what i meant to say was that, in part because we have put so much pressure on al qaeda in afghanistan, pakistan, waziristan, they're moving to yemen. it's a big country. very sparsely pop lated. a government facing two different uprisings in different parts of the country. this is fertile ground for this group to fester in. there have been three successful evasions of the homeland defenses in the last year. the individual in little rock

who walked in and shot a u.s. army recruiter. hasan at ft. hood and now abdulmutallab in detroit in the airplane, every one of those three is connected in some way to yemen. >> let's turn to abdulmutallab and the christmas day attempt and the administration's response. let me ask you straight up. do you have confidence that the secretary of the department of homeland security is up for the job? can do this job? >> i do. but i will say that her initial comments were bizarre and inappropriate. it baffled me that she said the system worked very, very smoothly when clearly it did not. it also surprised me when she implied that there was not information to indicate that this individual posed a threat

when there was information. nevertheless, i believe that secretary napolitano is working very hard and that she will cooperate with our efforts to ensure that these eaches in our defenses cannot happen again. >> is she is right person for the job? >> she is. she came to the job with tremendous experience. federal prosecutor, state attorney general. i agree with senator collins. some of the choice of words last sunday were subject to misunderstanding. they have been badly misunderstood. senator collins and i are beginning a series of hearings when congress comes back not just to look at the detroit bombing attempt but at where we are five years after the 9/11 commission reforms went into effect.

we're going to conduct these on the same bipartisan way we have done other things. we're in the out to attack anybody or protect anybody. we're out to fix what went on on december 25th. last year, 2009, our homeland, there were more than a dozen attempts to attack our homeland. three of them broke through. the detroit bombing could have been the most devastating terrorist attack on the u.s. since 9/11 if the explosive had gone off. it's time to take a fresh look not to knock down the department of homeland security or the 9/11 reforms, but to build up the reforms so we learn from our mistakes. >> there has been an al qaeda surge. let me ask you, congresswoman harmon. the violence out of these plots

coming out of released detainees from guantanamo bay. would you say the time has come, at least temporarily, to stop the release of prisoners from guantanamo bay to yemen? there are more than 90 yemeni prisoners in guantanamo bay. >> i was there three times to guantanamo bay. i'm planning a visit soon. i believe the prison should close. i also believe we should review again where we're going to send the detainees. i think it's a bad time to send the 90 or so yemenis back to yemen. i support the plan to open a prison in illinois. i hope that happens. i hope congress will fund it. we do a good job of keeping terrorists behind bars in the supermax prison in colorado. and if we're going to say we

live by the rule of law, we have to apply the rule of law to those we detain both abroad and in america. let me add a couple of other things. i think the al qaeda threat is different from what it was on 9/11. i think it is extremely strong, especially in yemen. i agree with the comments that have already been made. i'm glad the president decided to focus more assets on yemen. this is a global problem. the vice president, joe biden is right. we need a global counterterrorism strategy. as we fix the specific problem that allowed a 23-year-old nigerian kid to board a plane with well hidden explosives and a visa to board a u.s. plane, let's have a layered system that anticipates new problems. finally, there's a home grown terror problem in the united states. we have to understand it.

we have to work against it more adroitly. as we do that, i think it is past time for the president to stand up, the privacy and civil liberties board that the four of us put in the 2004 intelligence reform act, that civil liberties board is responsible for doing something we must do, which is to factor in the protection of our constitution as we develop new and harder hitting policies against the bad guys trying to attack us domestically and internationally. >> let me ask congressman hoekstra about something else that senator lieberman said. the pace of the al qaeda operational tempo in year accelerating and missed signals already this year. in the little rock recruiting office. muhammad was the subject of an investigation.

at the ft. hood military post. hasan, the subject of a federal inquiry. and on northwest flight 253. abdulmutallab was under the attention of the security community. what is happening here? a failure to connect the dots? or is it just time that we have to face the fact that maybe we won't be able to stop every potential attack? >> i think it's a reality that is very difficult to stop every single attack. doesn't mean we should stop trying to improve the mechanisms we put in place. the four of us worked together to put together the intelligence reform bill in 2004. it allowed us to make great strides. at improves our defensive and offensive capabilities against al qaeda. al qaeda continues to morph and change. the striking difference now is

the emergence of more americans as part of the process in al qaeda. they have a higher priority of attacking the united states. they have not set as criteria that they intend something as big as 9/11. they're satisfied with things like ft. hood and what could have happened on christmas day. in 2004, we focused on collecting all the information we needed to collect, we wanted to make sure that that information would be shared so we could connect the dots. the challenge that we now face is that we're collect sod much information, we are sharing it, we need to develop the capabilities to do a better job of analysis. we had the dots here. the problem was that the systems

are not in place to connect the dots. this is the part of the transformation we still need to see in the intelligence community. >> let me turn to passenger screening. which has been raised. is it time to profile passengers on the basis of religion or ethnicity? or is at the completely contrary to our ideals and values? >> the problem with profiling is if you take that approach, you're going to miss the richard reids who do not fit the profile. what we have in this case was the failure to act on a credible report from the terrorist's father, that should, at the very least, have caused the state department to revoke his visa. to me, that is the biggest question. why wasn't this individual's visa revoked once we had such a credible report that he posed a threat?

that, to me, is an even bigger failure than the failure to screen him effectively. it's also obvious that we need to employ technology better. in the screening systems. it is -- it is unacceptable that nine years or eight years after richard reid used the exact same explosive that we stl don't have a system in place that can detect that kind of explosive. >> now that abdulmutallab is in custody, should he be brought to trial in federal criminal court? >> no, i think that's a very serious mistake. look, president obama said yesterday, abdulmutallab was trained by al qaeda in the peninsula equipped by al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, and directed by them to get on the plane attack the united states of america. that was an act of war.

he should be treated as a prisoner of war. he should be held in a military brig. and in fact, he should be questioned now, and should have been ever since he was apprehended for intelligence that could help us stop the next attack or get the people in yemen who directed him to do what he did. yes, we should follow the rule of law. the rule of law that is relevant here is the rule of the law of war. i agree with what pete hoekstra said before. i believe guantanamo should not be closed. i know it has a bad reputation. i know the president promised in the course of the campaign that he would close i the president is in charge of what happens there now. so some of the abuses of the past are not going to happen. you could not find a better,

more humane facility for a detention center in the world. one thing we better learn from december 25th, it would be irresponsible to take any of the yemeni detainees and send them back to yemen. we know from past experience that some of them will be back in the fight against us. the leader of al qaeda on the arabian peninsula broke out of a jail there until we apparently kied him in the raid of christmas week. we have a lot to investigate. i think we have learned about how to close some of the holes. i believe, incidentally, that we ought to take a look at taking the visa application and admission responsibility from the state department, it doesn't fit foreign policy anymore. and in an age of terrorism, i think the department of homeland security ought to be handling visas abroad. i think we need to be tougher

abouterrorism watch lists. if somebody's father comes in and says he may be an extremist, he ought to go on a list. that is alerted any time he approaches -- >> i want to turn, congressman, to the political issue. the disagreements about guantanamo bay and the response of the administration, raised the political stakes no doubt. the former vice president had this to say in a statement, he said, we are at war and when president obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe. why doesn't he want to admit we're at war? it doesn't fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the oval office. it doesn't fit with what teams to be the goal of his presidency, social transforplaying, the restructuring of american society. do you think that is an appropriate comment? >> no, i respectfully disagree. i think the label war on terror,

which pete hoekstra has said himself is a ridiculousaming. we're at war with a tactic. i think president obama has been clear. the terrorists are not going to check our party registration before they blow us up. i don't think this abdulmutallab young man cared who he blew up on the airplane. i don't think the taliban cared who they blew up on the volleyball field recently. i don't think anybody cared they were harming some wonderfully courageous intelligence agents in the host province of afghanistan recently. our hearts go out to their families. my point, is unless we

understand who the enemy is, the enemy is al qaeda, which is a changed organization. a loose, horizontal affiliation of bad guys that team with whoever is available. they're very opportunistic. they have the ability to learn our vulnerabilities. we have to get that, work against that. protect the civil liberties of americans. i think the vice president is off bounds. i think he has been for awhile here. >> once upon a time, there was a tradition of solidarity and refraining from criticizing the president at the time the nation was under attack. three days after this attempt to kill 300 people over the skies of detroit, you sent out a fund-raising lette i would like to read part of it. you said -- i have pledged that i will do everything possible to prevent these terrorists from coming to michigan. but i need your help. if you agree that we need a

governor who will stand up -- please give $25, $50 to my campaign. given that tradition that once was part of this country are you proud of that? of fund-raising off a national crisis like that? >> i've been leading on national security for the last nine years. over the last two to three months, i've been concerned about where the administration is taking us on national security issues. the refuse toll acknowledge that the ft. hood attack was a -- >> but i'm asking about raising money off the attempted attack on 30 people three days after the attempt occurred? >> i'm talking about raising money off the attack. >> i'm proud of the role of making sure america is safe. i've been right on the facts all along. the connections with yemen. the differences between this

administration and myself have been substantive. i've been trying to drive this administration in a policy direction that keeps america safe. if you listen to the language from this morning, where the guests you have had on the program, we're at a point where we have come bac we have some political -- excuse me, policy disagreements. we have recognition that the threat is real, it's imminent. we need to come together to fix it. i'm proud of the role that i have played in making sure that this country stays safe. >> we'll see how that bipartisanship goes. welcome and thank you all for joining us. "the roundtable" is next. and we'll have george will, cynthia tucker, ron brownstein and david sanger. and later. "the sunday funnies." however you picture your retirement, pacific life can help... using 401k savings, life insurance, and annuities

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>> it's not raining over there. >> just sit down. >> cherry and -- >> grape? >> -- passion orange. >> looks good. >> how is everybody doing? >> we're great, now. how are you doing? >> happy new year. >> i love you. thank you so much. pleased to meet you. >> it's time to play. >> aloha. >> aloha. >> aloha, president obama, a native hawaiian.

there's some vignettes from his holiday in hawaii. the presidency always follows the president. let's talk about the week he had here in washington. our "roundtable." george will, sins ya cynthia tucker, david sanger, ron brownstein. aloha. let's talk about flight 253. >> there were three failures. one of which, the least important, the failure to connect the dots. when you have millions of dots, you cannot define as systemic failure anything short of perfection. our various intelligence agencies suggest 1600 names a day to be put on the terrorist watch list. he's a known extremist. as the president said. there are millions of them out there. we can't have --

second. as senator lieberman said this man should be treated as an enemy combatant, not lawyered up with miranda rights. and third, the most catastrophic failure here, that of al qaeda. after 9/11, they're down to explosives hidden in underwear. incompetently administered by the operatives they have. we need to look at them and think about what they're thinking about their own failures. >> it's good news, then? >> the inability to pull this off in a big way, obviously this was a much smaller plot than 9/11, is good news. on the other hand, i think that the failure to connecthe dots here is significant because we're eight years up the learning curve since 9/11. there was an intercept of the yemeni-al qaeda leader talking about a nigerian that would be sent out.

there was the suspect's father. visiting the embassy, a cable that went out and came back. and there was a visa that was issued. the people from the administration acknowledge that there's nothing in the way that the computer systems are put together that would do anything like a google search to connect all of these. in fact, if you apply for a visa, you're only checked by the computer systems at the moment you apply. it doesn't come back later on. the second failure, a post afghanistan decision failure. which is that we recognize that the r has moved to afghanistan, the rationale that the president gave for going in was to keep a weak state from turning into another al qaeda haven. and yet, clearly, yemen is a weak state. there was little public discussion of that, for some good reasons, for much of the

year. i think the result is americans are not prepared for what senator lieberman called the coming conflict. >> i have to agree with -- disagree with george on two of his points. the first is, yes, they have millions of dots to connect. there was a failure of common sense here. how many times does a father who is prominent, credible, going to an embassy and say i'm worried about my son. he used two key words, extremism and yemen. that should have immediately moved abdulmutallab to the top of every watch list that we have. the other thing i disagree about is not trying abdulmutallab in a civilian court. president obama is handling him like president bush handled richard reid. that's the right thing to do. we should follow the rule of law. because it helps us to get those

intelligence tips. would this father have walked into an american embassy and given up his son if he thought he would be shipped off to some black site and tortured? i don't think so. >> if you look at this, follow up on that point. an overall trajectory here. after 9/11, president bush made the decision that the threat was so unique and pervasive that we needed to do things differently than we had before. enhanced techniques. guantanamo. preemptive invasion in iraq. warrantless wiretapping. i think, if you look at president obama, without rejecting the bush approaches, he's trying to recalibrate them. move the responses into more traditional channels. moving more without completely renouncing the decisions. moving more of the cases into civilian court. closing guantanamo.

housing the detainees in supermax type places. when an event like this happens, you have a failure like this, you see the challenge to try to bring it back. this is what joe lieberman said within three minutes. don't send anyone back to yemen, don't try him in civilian court, don't close down guantanamo. take way visas from the department. when there are threats to security, the feeling of the country is to do whatever it takes. most americans opposed the closing of guantanamo. most have opposed trying sheik mohammed in civilian courts. this is the challenge that he faces in trying to make a more sustainable legal basis for trying these people. >> senator lieberman also said that the fallacy of the false alternative is to assume that you treat someone like this in criminal court or you don't have

a rule of law. there's a substantial bodyf law of war. that's the paradigm he's suggesting. >> obama has not said he will not use military commissions. >> he's said there are moments when he would keep people without charges. >> as you point out, an attack like this is an acid test. politically. now the country gets a sense of who president obama is as a commander in chief in a time of terror. has president obama been politically damaged? has secretary napolitano? >> i don't think, certainly, president obama has not sustained long-term damage. janet napolitano, we'll see. we'll see how congress treats her coming up in these investigations. i, for one, was pleased to see a president who had a measured response, who didn't immediately come back to the white house. the purpose of terrorism, after all, is to terrorize. why allow al qaeda to terrorize us? he had all the instruments of

state at his disposal. in hawaii. he reacted appropriately. i don't think there was a need for a "the sky is falling" response where the president immediately comes back. >> should secretary napolitano have come back from san francisco? >> i think wherever she was, she should not have used the phrases man-caused disasters. they have been aggressive, part of what we're seeing is al qaeda trying to adapt to the increased pressure. if you count, as being damaged, this making it more difficult for him to do some of the things he wans to do, in that sense, i think he has been damaged. they will argue that the people sent back to yemen are in prison today.

when you listen to jane harmon and joe lieberman say hold off on sending more people back, you can imagine how this will progress and why congress may make closing guantanamo more difficult in the month to come. >> i think that the president should not have dashed back to washington. when american planes shot down libyan planes, reagan was not woken up. he said, they wake me up when they shoot down our planes. >> what was going on in iran. another massive uprising in the last couple of weeks. the government now going directly after one of the leaders of the opposition, his nephew was killed, his wife was arrested. mousavi. how significant is what's happening in iran or is this another bubbling up of the

opposition and the government being able to tamp it down? >> it's significant. the question is is it tiananmen all over again? a government that will be able to, over time, contain this. a few months ago, we would have said, yeah, they'll be able to do that. every time this cycle happens, the iranian opposition seems to come back stroer. that leaves the president three levels of chess to play out. m p wein this coming year. the first american priority is the nuclear program. the administration thinks they have a little bit more time on that. in part because the iranians have run into technical troubles. with the nuclear enrichment program than people thought they had. those troubles, may, in part, be because they have a bad system

and gad and old equipment. it may be because there's been a lengthy american and israeli sabotage effort under way. we've been successful in the past. and the israelis have been successful in getting into the supply network that the iranians have used. the more interesting program is the one that president bush began to try to go in after the electrical systems and computer systems of the iranians. it's unclear how successful the u.s. has been. >> do the protests bring the opportunity for sanctions to take a bigger bite? >> sure. sanctions targeted at the investments over seas. of the. republican guard. somewhere between tiananmen and

romania this probably fas. this regime is much more ruthless in dealing with its own people than the shah was it's clear now. does the oppression deepen the resistance? i think so. >> the tone has changed. clearly identifying with support for the protesters and affirming our traditional role as kind of a voice in support of individual liberty. i think the question they're asking, in the long run, does the internal pressure on the iranian government make them more or less likely to want a deal with the west? in the long run, it may provide opportunities for pressure. >> a good point here. the more pressure that the u.s. puts on, they might feel that a confrontation with the

u.s. might be a way to unifie the government and distract from the issue. >> let's get back home. on december 24th, the most important issue was the health care bill. congress is coming back for a conference on that bill. there was already political talk in hawaii about this. rush limbaugh went to the hospital. as he left, he had this to say about the health care he received. >> the treatme i received here was the best that the world has to offer. i -- based on what happened to me here. i don't think there's one thing wrong with the american health care system. it's working just fine, just dandy. >> the delightful irony about that is that hawaii mandates that employers provide health care to their employees. is there going to be deal done by the state of the union? as the president wants? >> i believe there will be.

i believe that the democrats desperately want a bill. i believe they will keep their fractious 60 people in place, though there's increasing pressure on people like ben nelson. he was one of the last people to come to the table for the democrats. he's felt the need to put up an ad defending his decision. he's getting pressure in nebraska. he cut a last minute deal. there's a little pork barrel in the senate bill for nebraska. they don't have to play the increased medicaid costs. a lot of nebraskans are saying, we don't want that. it makes us look like we're greedy. i think else in listen stay in place and they'll keep their 60 votes. >> what rush limbaugh was say ing was great, except for the 47 million people that don't have health insurance. >> and are not as wealthy as he

is. >> this has been a difficult hill to take. the political costs of this hill are obvious. the approval rating of the president. there have been a lot of costs to get to this point. it's further than any president as ever gotten. no universal coverage bill has ever passed either chamber. to be at this point and not get to the finish line would be unimaginable. in the senate, there's no margin for error. the 60 people voting for the bill will almost certainly be the 60 voting for it next time around. in the house, people could be moving in and out of voting. yes and no. they're going to have to give more. >> it's not a universal bill. when this cam bane began a year ago, 87% of the american people had some form of health insurance. if this passed, 92% of people will be covered. in 2018, there will still be 23 million uninsured.

>> some of them illegal. >> we have to leave it there on health care and the coming battle. "the roundtable" will continue in the green room. coming up here, "the sunday funnies." in 25 years, global energconsumption will increase by 50%. to meet demand, we'll need to harness the power of sun... wind... waves... and atoms. but that's not enough. today, we need oil. which means before we drill for oil, we drill for data. we can create 3d models of hidden reserves. find new oil in old wells. extend the life of a field. reduce the need for new drilling. smarter resources... to fuel the smarter planet. that's what i'm working on. i'm an ibmer. let's build a smarter planet. who can help put their retirement plan back on solid ground... protect their savings...

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investment in the auto industry. to which bernie madoff said, i could do better than that. >> joe baca is no longer planning the nomination to give tiger woods a medal. he said, instead, i'm recommending he run for congress. >> tiger woods' popularity has dropped from 85% to 33%. president obama's popularity is also at 33% but tiger had more fun getting there. >> you think the republicans can take back the house. >> we're going to try our best to do it. >> the republican party will take both houses of congress. >> you know his prediction will come true because he got it from that creepy old gypsy woman. >> and we'll be right back. that creepy old gypsy woman. >> and we'll will right back.

morning.that's our program this thanks for joining us. have a great week. so long.